According to Greek mythology, Apollo, the god of prophecy, blessed Cassandra, daughter of the last king of Troy Priam, with the gift to foretell the future. When she refused his attempts to seduce her, he cursed her so that no one would believe her predictions, most famously when she tried to warn her family that the Trojan horse would lead to the destruction of Troy.

At the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, artist Nalini Malani reinterprets Cassandra’s tragedy in a chronological series of 42 prints. Her work is inspired by the writings of German critic and novelist Christa Wolf, which retells the classical narrative from the perspective of the ignored woman, a theme that has deep resonance for women in contemporary times.

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“We all have both aspects of Cassandra in us — the power to know what the future holds for us, and the part that thwarts us from acting on it,” said Ms. Malani. “The effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster haven’t stopped proposals for a new nuclear plant at Ratnagiri [in the western state of Maharashtra]… is it greed that makes us shortsighted?” she said during an interview on the show’s opening night this week.

Religious and ethnic conflict, gender-based violence and the marginalization of vulnerable groups are pervasive themes in Ms. Malani’s work. But in this series, she depicts rage, war and destruction in delicate and gentle illustrations, giving the viewer a sense of hope and calm in spite of Cassandra’s gloomy prophecies.

Courtesy Volte Gallery, Mumbai

From the series ‘Listening to the Shades’ by Nalini Malani.

Socio-political issues, from the impact of Bauxite mining on tribal populations in the northeastern states Orissa and Jharkhand to the obliteration of entire townships in South Africa during apartheid, are at the forefront of the series.

An image of the inner ear with a gun held to it depicts the concept of foresight, with a murderous threat that stops humans from acting on it. Cassandra is absent from all but one print, in a turquoise blue hue that invokes the shores of Troy. She attempts to blow life into a human spine, even as warplanes fly toward her head, depicting her vain attempts to save others.

Anatomical images of the brain, kidneys, inner and outer ear, and the spinal chord are recurring motifs, drawn with the accuracy of their realistic forms and enhanced with Ms. Malani’s deft strokes in a vibrant palette of blues, yellows, oranges and reds.

“My father wanted me to get a ‘good’ degree, but I wanted to be an artist. I studied anatomy because I thought I would make a living illustrating medical books… at the time, the idea of a woman artist didn’t exist,” said Ms. Malani, who received her diploma in Fine Arts from the J. J. School of Arts in Mumbai in 1969.

Born in Karachi in 1946, Ms. Malani and her family moved to Calcutta in 1947, shortly before the partition of the subcontinent. “My grandfather was a zamindar [land owner] and left everything behind… when I was growing up, my family never spoke of independence, but of the cleavage of partition,” said the artist, who now divides her time between Mumbai and Amsterdam.

The sense of alienation Ms. Malani’s parents experienced in India during her childhood had a profound impact on her work, articulated through a wide range of media, from painting to installation and video projection, in a career spanning over four decades.

Courtesy Volte Gallery, Mumbai

“From the series ‘Listening to the Shades’ by Nalini Malani.

“What’s special about Nalini is that she straddles the lacuna between cutting-edge new media, and the earliest cinematic techniques and folk art… her artistic language is so routed in local tradition, but the form it takes is very contemporary,” said Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, the show’s curator.

“Nalini’s one of the few artists I’d been pursuing to do a show for the museum, and when she won the Fukuoka prize, I decided to do this show to celebrate,” added Ms. Zakaria Mehta. Earlier this year, Ms. Malani was the first female visual artist from Asia to receive the Fukuoka, a Japanese honor for outstanding contributions to Asian culture.

The paintings were initially created as reverse paintings on glass for her book, Listening to the Shades, published in 2008. Reverse painting is an 18th century Chinese technique used to create panels for furniture. “I liked the idea of using a technique that is traditionally seen as decorative instead of high art,” said Ms. Malani, explaining that the challenge with painting on glass is that the layers of the painting are applied in reverse.

“The final touches, like the features on the face, are painted first… I suppose I wanted to unlearn art school, where you learn to build up layers of oil paint,” she added.

Photographs of Ms. Malani’s original panels were reproduced for the show, displayed against a rich, royal blue background that allows the precise details and luminescent colors to ricochet off the walls.

The show also includes three stop motion animation videos displayed in a separate projection room: one reinterprets Bertolt Brecht’s The Job, another is a metaphor for the burial shroud of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife from Homer’s Odyssey, and the third animates the life of a single cell. The show will travel to Delhi and New York in 2014.

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